


A Tribute: The Shopkeeper

by Pariwhoop



Series: Tribute [1]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Bleach - Freeform, Bleach end, Division 12, Gen, Shinigami, Urahara Kisuke - Freeform, Urahara/Yoruichi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 22:02:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16395905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pariwhoop/pseuds/Pariwhoop
Summary: Just who was Urahara Kisuke?We were never told enough.Let's talk about Urahara Kisuke. Because he deserves it. He deserves a mention.He deserves better.





	A Tribute: The Shopkeeper

Let's talk about Urahara Kisuke.  
Because he deserves it. He deserves a mention.  
He deserves better, because, this was his story. Bleach is more a story of Urahara's mistakes, his trust and his work than it ever was about Kurosaki Ichigo. Without him, there would not have been a start or an end.  
Bleach is Urahara's, but he chose to shroud himself in shadow, to be just a shopkeeper in the background, assisting those that needed it.  
Was it guilt?  
Was it shame?  
We will not know.

But where are the tears for Urahara Kisuke? We have the tears for the characters that we shipped, but the characters that we once loved, that probably/not quite died, we have forgotten.  
Tell me about him.  
Tell me about the man who earned his bankai in the most reckless three days possible.  
Tell me about the man who saw his lieutenant, scared and lonely and hurting after her foster mother left her and how he saved her.  
Tell me about the man who sat for hours at end in his laboratory, building so many things that changed people's lives.

And tell me about the child that he once was. He would have been a curious child, one who made batteries out of lemons or whatever he could get.  
Maybe he was an orphan from the Rukongai, maybe he was the son of one of the vassals to the Shihoin, but we'll never know how he came to live with the Shihoins.  
Tell me about him when he was one of the brightest students his professors had ever seen(they hadn't met Aizen Sousuke yet, and even when they did, Aizen always tried to keep himself normal, unnoticed, to carry out his plans) and she was the bored scion of her house.  
Tell me he was friend with his best friend's younger brother. Show me Yuushirou idolising Urahara, and Urahara teaching Yuushirou how to fight.  
We'll never truly know how he formed the friendship of a lifetime with Yoruichi Shihoin.

Tell me about the Captain whose life fell apart, Tell me about the Captain whose friends were turned into half hollow monsters, how he failed to save them. And tell me how an invention he had created to only make his fellow shinigami stronger, different, was actually stolen by Aizen Sousuke.  
Tell me about the captain who was abandoned by his Society.

Tell me about the Urahara Kisuke who stood in front of his colleagues and friends who had had their lives snatched for his dreams. Tell me how he faced Hiyori, little Hiyori, who had lost everything.  
But also tell me what he did next.  
Tell me how he took care of them, then, how he and Yoruichi and Tessai found food and work and scraps until the Visoreds got better.  
Tell me he did something during the wars, tell me he tried to save Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the human government, and tell me how he failed and thought that he could never help anyone without it turning out worse for the other person.  
Don't tell me he just met Masaki Kurosaski. Give me the dinners he had with her and Isshin. Give me Isshin asking him for advice how he had once asked Hirako Shinji. Give me Masaki calling him for relationship advice, give me true, actual, existing friendship.  
Give me Urahara visiting Masaki's grave, and searching for her killer with Isshin. Give me Urahara Kisuke keeping dangerous hollows away from Masaki Kurosaki's family, and of course, Ichigo Kurosaki.  
Give me Urahara Kisuke watchig over Ichigo, seeing his powers develop, waiting for Karin to come into her own. Give it all to me.  
Tell me about Urahara inevitably blaming himself for Ichigo losing his powers to Aizen, tell me how he stayed up nights and days and searched for a way to give back one of his best friend's child what he had sacrificed for Urahara's mistakes, Urahara's blindness to Aizen Sosuke, all those years ago, with the Hougyoku.  
Give me the visoreds hanging out at his place together, give me Hirako Shinji, his old friend,finally forgiving him and sitting with him once again to see the stars; give me Hiyori firgiving him and coming over once a week to at least catch up.

Give me Urahara Kisuke, the ex Captain of the twelfth division, a man with a chip on his shoulder, a dreamer whose dreams betrayed him, and someone who carried others and tried to make them better versions of themselves- give me this man, adopting two mortal kids, knowing, that one day, he would be forced to watch them die, two orphans, naming them and raising them and teaching them to read.  
Give me a dyslexic Ururu and Urahara telling her that it's okay, and that he's still proud of her.

Show me a man who was once the child who dreamed of stars and of a better world, who just wanted this world to be better, kinder and wanted to use his intelligence to do so.

Show me Urahara Kisuke.


End file.
